Baptism and New Birth

As many as are persuaded and believe that what we teach and say is true, and who undertake to be able to live accordingly, are taught to pray and ask God with fasting for the forgiveness of their past sins, while we pray and fast with them.

Then they are brought by us to where there is water, and in the manner of regeneration by which we ourselves were regenerated they are regenerated. For in the name of God the Father and Master of all, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they then wash in the water.

We were not called children and infants for a childish, contemptible lesson. Regenerated, we have at once received the perfect — which is why we were hurrying. For we were illuminated; and that means to know God. The one who knows the perfect is not incomplete.

To believe only and to be regenerated is perfection in life; God is never weak. As his will is work and that work is called world, so his wish is the salvation of human beings, and that is called church. The one newly regenerated — as the name shows — being illuminated, is at once freed from darkness and receives the light.